Transcript – Episode 114

[Show music begins]

Caleb Graves: This is Episode 114 of Alohomora! for December 13, 2014.

[Show music continues]

Caleb: Hey everyone, we’re back for another episode of Alohomora! I’m Caleb Graves.

Kat Miller: I’m Kat Miller.

Rosie Morris: And I’m Rosie Morris. And it’s my pleasure to introduce our guest today: Lucy Saxon.

Lucy Saxon: Hi, guys!

Rosie: Would you like to tell us a little bit about yourself?

Lucy: I’m an author of the YA fantasy book Take Back the Skies, which is the first in a series of six.

Kat: Ooh.

Rosie: We do like long series of books.

[Kat and Lucy laugh]

Kat: Oh yes, we do.

Lucy: Yeah. The second one is out in June 2015, and I’m already having to work on the third. So in for the long haul there.

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: Can you give us a synopsis in just a few sentences for us here?

Lucy: It’s a steampunk fantasy set in a fantasy world where there’s six countries and the seas are really rough, so everyone travels by sky ship. And the main country has been at war with the rest of the world for over a decade. And basically the main character lives in that country and her dad runs the government, and she hates him and hates the government. So [she] runs away and on running away, [she] finds out a lot of secrets about the country and the war. And of course once she finds out those secrets, she isn’t just going to sit there and let them lie.

Kat: Wow.

Caleb: Interesting.

Rosie: It’s a really good adventure. I recommend reading it. [laughs]

Lucy: Thank you. [laughs]

Kat: It sounds good. Okay, I’m going to add that to the list.

[Lucy and Rosie laugh]

Caleb: It seems like steampunk books, and especially series, are really sustaining right now. I think that’s really cool.

Lucy: Yeah, when I was first off writing it and especially when I was first trying to find a publisher, there was a lot of worries about steampunk not being able to hold its own. But I think it’s doing really well now.

Rosie: So this week we are reading Chapter 36 of Order of the Phoenix, “The Only One He Ever Feared.” So make sure you have read that before listening to the rest of the episode.

Kat: But of course before we jump into this week’s chapter, we are going to talk about some of the points from last week’s chapter, which was Chapter 35 of Order of the Phoenix. There were so many good topics – I had about twelve of them in here and had to pare it down to just these three or four. So definitely head over to alohomora.mugglenet.com and check out all the comments – they were so good this week. But our first one here comes from SeekerHolly, she says,

“In regard to Voldemort’s blood status: I think another reason why Death Eaters wouldn’t question his blood status would be because of his relation to Salazar Slytherin. I would assume that Voldemort would heavily boast this relation because he finds so much pride, power and status being related to one of Hogwarts’ founders. Also, he revels in his ability to speak with snakes, which I think he would relate back to his ties to Slytherin as much as possible. He is so insecure about the fact that his father is a Muggle that I would think he would overcompensate by stressing his family ties to Slytherin so much in front of the Death Eaters in order to distract them from delving too far into his bloodlines and family background on his father’s side. This is also helped by the fact that not many people, let alone Death Eaters, know that he was Tom Riddle before his transformation into the Dark Lord.”

So of course, this came from a whole discussion last week about when Harry yells… or tells them that Lord Voldemort is in fact a half-blood, not a pure-blood like he believes they think he is. So what did you guys think about this?

Caleb: Yeah, this is a really good response to a question that we had raised. Rosie and I talked about [this] with our other hosts, and we got to a similar point. This comment brings up a good argument that he would force his ties with Salazar Slytherin, which we didn’t think about as much last week. So that’s a good reasoning.

Kat: Yeah, I liked that you brought up that not many people would – besides probably Dumbledore – really know that his name is actually Tom Riddle. I wonder…

Rosie: I find that hard to believe, though.

Kat: I know.

Rosie: Tom Riddle was kind of famous within Hogwarts’s circles. He was the really popular kid. How would no one realize that it’s the same guy?

Lucy: Maybe he’s just really good at making himself disappear and reinventing himself, so there’s no ties back to Tom Riddle once he is Voldemort.

Kat: There is definitely a couple of Death Eaters that have to know his real name because they went to school together.

Rosie: Yeah.

Lucy: Yeah, but I think with a lot of the Death Eaters – particularly the ones that go to the Ministry with him – they’re the kind of [DE]s where, even if Harry had a family tree right in front of them, they still wouldn’t believe that he is a half-blood…

[Rosie laughs]

Lucy: … because they trust him so much.

Rosie: Yeah. Or they just don’t care.

Lucy: No.

Rosie: [laughs] I don’t know, I think… yeah, it’s the hypocritical thing where you seek the failures of others and just ignore them in yourself.

Lucy: Mmm.

Rosie: So yeah, they’ve got the supremacy thing going on where it doesn’t matter what they are; it’s what you are that is… it’s a horrific thing.

Lucy: Or maybe the fact that his magical side is tied back to Salazar Slytherin sort of outweighs the part that makes him Muggle, so to speak.

Rosie: Yeah, cancels it out.

Lucy: Yeah.

Kat: This really makes me think about the ever present half-blood Snape and how… I don’t know, just when you guys were talking about it, it really made me think about how proud he is to be a half-blood.

Lucy: Hmm, but then he’s not fully into Voldemort’s ideals. So I think he wouldn’t have that fanatical need to be pure-blooded like Voldemort does.

Rosie: He’s proud that he can do all of those things whilst only being half-blood. Whereas Voldemort is very much focused on being able to be as magical as possible, ignoring the half-blood-ness.

Lucy: Yeah.

Kat: True. Okay, I see what you mean. Our next comment here is actually two comments in one – it’s from ElvisGaunt. Last week there was a lot of discussion – rightfully so – about prophecies, and even the responses from the Podcast Question of the Week were about that. And ElvisGaunt brought up a few really good points that I wanted to touch on here. We don’t necessarily have to talk about it for a super long time, but I thought they were really important to bring up. So the first one here says,

“I have this one issue with the idea that a prophecy magically appears on the shelves in the Department of Mysteries as soon as it is made. It would mean the prophecy we heard in the third book would be labelled thus: SPT to HJP, The Dark Lord and Peter Pettigrew. Someone working there would notice it and realise that Wormtail was alive and that he is in fact a Voldemort supporter. I am sure the news would reach Fudge and he would find it difficult to deny Voldemort’s return to himself after that.”

The next one – and then we can discuss – says,

“Does anybody find it interesting that the label of the prophecy refers to Voldemort as the Dark Lord? We know that only Death Eaters refer to him thus.”

Rosie: Ooh.

Caleb: So with the first one, that’s a good point. But wouldn’t this still be a problem even…? So they raised this concern, saying that it’s hard to believe the prophecy magically appears on the shelves, but I would think the only other alternative is that someone receives the prophecy and puts it in. Well, I guess they’re arguing that it has to be arranged for the prophecy to be put there. I don’t know, I’m just thinking that no matter what, this problem would arise. Someone would figure out that there is a prophecy with Peter Pettigrew.

Lucy: Maybe prophecies have to have a certain level of importance to go on the shelves in the Department of Mysteries. Because otherwise… you think about it, the Seers could make prophecies about anything. Maybe one is like, “It might rain a bit next Wednesday.” You don’t really need that on the shelves there. So maybe they have to be important enough to get on the shelves, and Trelawney’s prophecy about Pettigrew wasn’t that important because it was resolved very quickly. So I don’t know, there’s always that.

Rosie: We touched on that a bit last week with the idea of naming prophecies. So what names would suit your children, which I think came up on Pottermore? We thought that maybe prophecies were arranged by size, so a tiny prophecy would be the size of a marble, whereas these things are more palm-sized.

Caleb: Right.

Rosie: And then you could have bins of useless prophecies somewhere. [laughs]

Kat: I think the theory that this comment is contesting is the one where you were talking about how the person has to supply the memory.

Rosie: Yeah. But the idea… if you’ve got the Dark Lord, then you could have Wormtail and that might be a bit more… [unintelligible]

Lucy: Vague.

Caleb: Right, that is a good point. Yeah.

Rosie: Don’t forget also that the original prophecy about Harry was a question mark because it was unclear about who it was referring to originally until someone added the name. So nothing in Trelawney’s prophecy in the third book actually mentions Pettigrew specifically, so you could equally have the question mark referring to that name perhaps.

Lucy: That all depends on whether… if the prophecies do just appear on the shelves, do the labels appear with them or does someone label them? Because if so, this question mark could be because they don’t know, because they don’t have the context.

Rosie: Yeah.

Caleb: Yeah.

Kat: Oh, this is such a deep dark hole. [laughs]

Caleb: That’s something we spent a long time discussing last week and we still didn’t come up with an answer.

Kat: And even the episode before. So this is like the third episode, yeah.

Caleb: Yeah.

Rosie: [laughs] In terms of the second point, though – the Voldemort versus the Dark Lord thing – either way, if it was being very official it should say Tom Riddle, rather than either of those two.

Kat: Mhm.

Caleb: Yeah.

Rosie: But don’t forget that the wizarding world at large calls him He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and that’s just a bit of a mouthful to put on a piece of paper.

Caleb: [laughs] They’re using words economically.

Rosie: So the Dark Lord is more of an official title.

[Caleb laughs]

Kat: True. But still, I would imagine them putting Lord Voldemort and not necessarily the Dark Lord.

Rosie: Hagrid can’t even write it down in the first book, which may say something more about Hagrid…

Kat: [laughs] Right.

Rosie: … because the name itself is so terrible you can’t even write it down.

Lucy: Yeah, but then you get people who practically faint upon hearing Voldemort, so it wouldn’t surprise me if they were too scared to even write it.

Rosie: Yeah. The Dark Lord is more official and slightly less scary.

Kat: And MrsO822 on the forums just had another little, funny head canon comment about the prophecy. She says,

“I’m not really sure why, but I always assumed that the broken prophecy was predicting Voldemort. After the defeat of Grindelwald, another dark wizard would come along, and none would come after.”

Because you guys talked about the whole Deathly Hallows thing…

Rosie: Yeah. “At the solstice will come a new.”

Kat: Yes. Which I was with you guys and I had heard that before. So disappointing that it doesn’t work out. I wish it did.

Rosie: Yeah, it’s the wrong one. [laughs]

Kat: But she later pointed out that of course those are two different prophecies. But still, that would be very neat if that foreshadowing was about Voldemort. Our last comment here comes from RoonilWazlib and it says,

“Some people in earlier comments were talking about how Harry doesn’t use dangerous spells even during this fight when he and his friends are in so much danger. Along those same lines, can we talk for a minute about Dolohov busting out Tarantallegra? I mean, he’s a vicious Death Eater who we know brutally murdered Fabian and Gideon Prewett and will go on to murder Lupin and Tonks. The guy obviously knows a ton of dark magic, curses, hexes, etc. And earlier in the chapter, Malfoy specifically tells the other Death Eaters that it’s okay to kill everyone except Harry. But in this moment, instead of killing or at least immobilizing Neville, Dolohov is like “I know – TAP DANCE CURSE!” This chapter makes me cry in like three different places, but I will never not laugh about tap dance curse.”

Rosie: It’s a running joke with StarKid as well – if you’ve ever seem any of the three StarKid Harry Potter musicals – that the Death Eaters are all tap dancers and that’s their thing that they do – magical flourishes with dance moves.

[Kat laughs]

Lucy: It’s pretty great.

Rosie: It’s hilarious and probably based on this.

Kat: Oh, man. Okay, I might have to watch it just for that.

Lucy: Yeah, definitely watch it.

Kat: I’ll watch that part. Okay.

Caleb: For me, this is one of those points where I always thought Dolohov was a much more skilled wizard than most of the other Death Eaters, maybe all of them, because he doesn’t just resort to the most brutish way of attacking someone with magic. He usually comes across as having, for lack of a better word, more creative use of magic to deal with the situation, and I think this is one of those scenarios where that occurs.

Kat: Yeah.

Lucy: I think you can sort of look at it in two ways: maybe he feels a little bad about torturing and murdering teenagers, or he just finds it entertaining to watch Neville dance and that’s why he did it.

Rosie: Yeah. That could be it.

Caleb: That’s possible. [laughs]

Lucy: It depends how twisted you want to think of him as.

Kat: True.

Rosie: Dolohov’s pretty twisted, I think.

Kat: There we go. That is our recap.

Caleb: Before we move on to the Question of the Week responses, I just realized, Lucy, we forgot to ask you at the beginning what Hogwarts House you would be in.

Lucy: Slytherin! That is… there’s no question about that. I would be Sorted into Malfoy levels of Slytherin in that it doesn’t even have to touch my head.

[Rosie laughs]

Caleb: Oh, wow.

Kat: Nice.

Lucy: Yep.

Caleb: Owned it, I like it.

Kat: And with that, that means we have all four today.

Caleb: That’s right, we do.

Lucy: Excellent. Representation from all sides of Hogwarts.

Caleb: All right, so now we are going to get into the Question of the Week responses from the question Rosie came up with last week. And to remind you of that question: “After a quick cry, it’s time to think about Sirius’s expression as he fell into the veil. His face is described as full of shock and fear, so how much did Sirius know about the veil and what was happening in that moment? How much did he think about what he was leaving behind and where he was going to on the other side? Also, what is the nature of the veil itself? What happens when you cross to the other side?”

Rosie: It’s quite a lot of questions in one. Sorry. [laughs]

Caleb: Yes. There were a host of really great responses hitting on different pieces of this question, so definitely go check out them all. But the first one takes… obviously we learn a little bit more later in Deathly Hallows when we see Sirius come back again with the Resurrection Stone, but this first response is interesting, I think, because it doesn’t take that into consideration. So it considers what we may have thought after reading this book, and it’s from SwishySycamore:

“I think Sirius did have an idea about what was happening as he heard the voices. I can also predict that the [O]rder knew what was in the Department of [Mysteries], so Sirius knew about the veil. I think he would only be thinking of Harry and leaving him alone again, th[e]n death itself. He seemed like the kind of Gryffindor who would not fear death but leaving people on the other side. On the other side of the veil, I picture it to just have the souls of the people just swirling around, screaming that they want to be let out or alive again. Sirius didn’t like being kept in one place, so his soul would be screaming the loudest.”

Lucy: Ooh, that’s really sinister.

Kat: Wow.

Caleb: Yeah.

Lucy: Sort of an in-between place. Ugh! Creepy.

Caleb: Mhm. The last line just kind of crippled me when I read it. [laughs]

Kat: Oh, yeah.

Lucy: Oh, I’m not okay with that. [laughs]

Caleb: Yeah. But fortunately, though, there’s still some grounds for debate that happens over on the Alohomora! site, so you should check that out. But this response comes from WizardorWhat:

“I think that the answer to this question lies in the 7th book, when Harry asks Sirius, ‘Does it hurt?'”

He’s talking about dying. And Sirius responds,

“‘Dying? Not at all. Quicker and easier than falling asleep.’ Sirius'[s] actual experience of death was quick, easy and painless. I think that his expression of ‘mingled fear and surprise’ is captured the moment before death, in the instant between realising that Bellatrix was about to hit him with the [K]illing [C]urse but before he was actually hit and died. In that instant, he revealed his expectation of death as something to be feared. His expression is fixed because, having died, he can’t change his expression. Actually, I think that Rowling is making a point in juxtaposing Sirius'[s] expectations of death with his actual experience of it. It’s the same point that she makes when Dumbledore expresses pity for Voldemort: death is not a scary thing, but people treat it as scary, and some of the things people do to avoid death are scary. As Dumbledore put it, ‘Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and above all, those who live without love.’ Sirius'[s] expectation of death as something to be feared was incorrect – actually, it was easy. The only thing to fear is suffering during life.”

I will point out that it’s still up for debate, whether or not Bellatrix actually kills him with a Killing Curse. That’s definitely movie canon; it’s not as clear here.

Lucy: Yeah, I don’t think it’s ever said in the book, and I think the one before it, it says red light, so assuming that she uses the same spell, it’s definitely not the Killing Curse.

Kat: Ooh. That’s quite the comment, though.

Caleb: Yeah. So I mean, we do learn later that he says, “Dying is quick.” So we learn that, but there’s still a lot open as to what actually happens with this experience of going across the veil.

Rosie: And also whether you trust Sirius when he says it to Harry in the forest. Is he just being comforting because Harry is about to die?

Caleb: Right.

Lucy: Yeah, in that situation, you wouldn’t be like, “Oh, it was really painful. It was the worst experience ever.”

[Rosie laughs]

Caleb: The last response comes from ISeeThestrals:

“It may have taken an age for Sirius to fall from Harry s point of view, but in reality there was not enough time for Sirius to think about where he was going. His look of mingled fear and surprise stem[s] from him being physically struck as well as his underestimation of Bellatrix. Considering how close he was to the veil, Sirius might have actually heard the whispers and even sensed his own life slipping away. As soon as he touched the veil, he was gone. I like the theory of the veil being part of Death s cloak. I think in some ways it can also be tied to the [K]illing [C]urse, which is instant death as well. No one knows what happens once you cross over after death. The stone archway has become a symbol of the mystery of death, which is already so intertwined into the series. It is the gateway or portal or window into a world where the living will cross into in their own time, yet no one is able to see past the hanging cloth. Regardless of the many other ways that Sirius could have died and what would happen afterwards, as in him experiencing some long and great spiritual journey, Sirius might have had an immediate encounter with James and Lily, who[m] I believe might have been standing on the other side of that veil whispering to Harry and ready to greet their old friend.”

Lucy: Aww. I like that one. Let’s go with that.

[Caleb and Rosie laugh]

Kat: That makes want to cry so much more than Sirius dying. I’m just saying…

Lucy: But also, can we talk about Remus Lupin for a minute? Because there’s so much focus on Harry and him losing Sirius that everyone forgets that Remus is right there just losing the last of his friends, and it just hits me so hard I just can’t cope. And no one seems to talk too much about Remus going through that. It’s just all about Harry.

Rosie: We will definitely be talking about that in a little bit in the beginning of the next chapter because there’s so much detail and description of Remus at the beginning of that scene.

Kat: Lots of Lupin love.

Rosie: It’s very painful.

Lucy: Excellent.

Rosie: Yeah. Michael should be on this episode. Where is he? [laughs]

Kat: Lucy can fill in for him today.

Lucy: Yep, I’m a big fan of Remus Lupin.

Rosie: As we all should be. There'[re] such great, almost underestimated characters that are not talked about enough. Remus and Tonks, and yeah, I like them as a pair.

Lucy: Still not over it.

Rosie: No.

Kat: Too soon, too soon.

Lucy: Way too soon.

Rosie: I love the idea of the archway as a gateway or a portal and the idea that the people [whom] you’ve lost are literally just on the other side. I’ve always liked the idea of a parallel word theory, so you’ve got the same space but inhabited by the people [whom] you’ve lost. So that when Harry uses that Resurrection Stone later on and they’re walking with him, it’s that same thing. They were always there; it’s just, the Resurrection Stone lets him see them.

Kat: Right.

Rosie: So it’s the portal; the veil is another gateway through that.

Lucy: Yeah, I’m also a fan of the theory that it’s a portal to Middle Earth, but somehow, I don’t think that’s actually going to be a thing. But wouldn’t it be amazing if it [were], though?

Rosie: Or Narnia, yeah.

Lucy: Just to any other fictional universe. That would be very cool if the archway [were] just sort of a transition point between different fictions?

Caleb: So that wraps up your responses to our Question of the Week. Like I said, there are a lot more discussing many pieces of Rosie’s really great question, so check those over the main site.

Rosie: And now it’s time for our next chapter.

[Order of the Phoenix Chapter 36 intro begins]

[Sound of spell being cast]

[Sound of wall crumbling]

Harry and Voldemort: Chapter 36.

[Sound of wall crumbling]

[Sound of spell being cast]

Harry and Hermione: “The Only One He Ever Feared.”

[Sound of spell being cast]

[Sound of water fountain splashing]

[Order of the Phoenix Chapter 36 intro ends]

Rosie: So it is showdown time, and the battle we’ve been waiting for for five long years, but before we get to that, Harry can’t comprehend what has just happened, and Lupin is trying to keep him from running through the veil straight after Sirius. He thinks that he’s just on the other side, but Lupin really knows what’s just happened, and it’s so painful, that description of him there. Finally, the realization actually hits, and Harry is just gutted by what’s just happened. Dumbledore, in the meantime, has managed to round up all of the rest of the Death Eaters single-handedly and confounded them.

[Caleb and Lucy laugh]

Lucy: As he does, because he’s Dumbledore.

Rosie: Exactly. It’s amazing. He just turned, and just yeah, completely changed the fight, while Kingsley has actually taken up the rest of Sirius’s fight against Bellatrix. Lupin has now lost both James and Sirius, and yeah, again, the description is just… the pain is palpable, while Harry takes off after a fleeing Bellatrix, who has just knocked Kingsley to the ground. While he does this, we see Harry run past all of his injured friends in sequence; somehow, they’ve all managed to line up there and next to each other. And then, finally, the fight begins with Voldemort and Dumbledore. But before we get to that, let’s discuss a bit about that sequence of description of the pain that they’re all feeling. Harry is so convinced that Sirius is just hiding on the other side of the veil. Is it just that he does comprehend what’s happening but doesn’t want to believe it?

Lucy: Yes.

Rosie: Or does he actually think that he’s just fallen through?

Lucy: I think he’s just not willing to believe it and admit that Sirius is gone. It’s implied that the veil is vaguely see-through, so I think if Sirius had just fallen through, he’d probably be able to sort of see that, or someone would be like, “Hey, he’s on the other side. He’s fine.”

Kat: And I think Harry has this impression of Sirius that he is just completely untouchable because he has escaped so much, and I think that Harry just can’t even imagine that this has happened to him. This is Sirius, his almighty protector and the person who never loses, so…

Lucy: Yeah, I think, especially when Sirius is around Harry throughout… since we meet him, he’s always sort of giving that impression of being invincible and just “Oh, don’t worry, Harry. Nothing will hurt me. Nothing will bother me. Just worry about yourself.” So I think he perpetuates that, which doesn’t help when he then goes through the veil.

Kat: Yep. I agree completely.

Rosie: And it’s so obvious that Lupin really does understand what’s going on as well. So you’ve got the contrast of Harry’s optimism and Lupin’s complete and utter destruction of everything that he believes in almost. You get this discussion: “He’s just… he’s gone! He’s gone!”

Kat: Yeah, the line that says, “It sounded as though every word was causing him pain.” And I’m like…

Kat, Lucy, and Rosie: Aww.

Kat: “No! My baby!”

[Rosie laughs]

Lucy: But I remember when I first read it ages ago – reading on I think it was some sort of Harry Potter forum or possibly in a fan fiction – and it was saying how Remus was holding onto Harry so tight, not to stop Harry from running after Sirius but to stop himself from reaching out.

Rosie: That’s even worse. [laughs]

Lucy: And I was just like, “Okay, kick me right in the feels. It’s not like I needed my heart or anything.”

[Kat, Lucy, and Rosie laugh]

Lucy: But I just… that image is just so strong of him holding on to Harry and just watching Sirius fall.

Kat: It’s one of my favorite parts of the movie. It’s just how… and I guess we’ll get there in a few weeks, but it goes completely silent during that moment, and I just think it’s so powerful.

Lucy: Favorite and also least favorite part just because emotions.

Rosie: [laughs] Yeah.

Kat: Sirius’s death didn’t really affect me.

Lucy: Really?

Kat: Yeah, it just didn’t.

Rosie: In the book or the film? Or both?

Kat: The film only because of Lupin’s reaction but both, really. I never really attached to Sirius like some people did. Honestly, a lot of people will probably hate me for saying this, but I feel like Gary Oldman’s portrayal of Sirius boosted Sirius in the likable character category for a lot of people. I feel like a lot of people are more attached to him because of how amazing Gary Oldman is because book Sirius, not that cool.

Lucy: Really?

Rosie: I disagree. [laughs]

Caleb: That’s definitely not the case for me. I liked Sirius a lot before. Because I was young and didn’t know who Gary Oldman was at the time. Just wasn’t old enough to know a lot of actors, especially a lot of British actors.

Rosie: Danger, danger, Will Robinson.

[Kat laughs]

Caleb: But yeah, I was a big fan of Sirius before he was ever even cast, so this was a pretty devastating blow for me.

Rosie: Yeah, my account name on everything’s always been RoxieBlack, which was because of Sirius, so… [laughs]

Lucy: One thing that I always found when reading the books with Sirius is it felt like he was the kind of character who was going to become so central, and it was just like, soon we’re going to find out so much more. He’s going to be more important to the plot, and it just felt like when he died, we were losing that, and he could have just been so much more, and J.K. Rowling just had to cruelly take him away. I’m a big fan of Sirius and Remus, just anything Marauders. I just… I really want a Marauders book series or TV series or something.

Rosie: Don’t we all? [laughs]

Lucy: Because I just want to find out so much more about them. I love them so much.

Kat: Well, Jo is getting so much into TV these days. Maybe that would be the route.

Lucy: I live and hope.

Rosie: [laughs] Maybe. We have got to follow Harry now, though, as he runs through the Ministry after Bellatrix. We see him running through corridors, and he finally asks the room which door he should go through, which they could have thought of originally.

[Lucy laughs]

Rosie: The door opens for him. We see him chasing up the elevators and everything, and finally, Harry and Bella are in the – what’s the name of it…? Atrium, there we go – atrium of the Ministry of Magic, and Harry casts Unforgivable Curses at her to try [to] stop her. He casts [the Cruciatus Curse], and she just turns around and says, “You have to mean them.” And it just makes you think… these are Unforgivable Curses, and the power that is involved in casting these and what they actually can do, for you to have to mean them and have to mean to make that much pain, especially with [the] Cruciatus [Curse]…

Caleb: And not just anger.

Rosie: What can actually make you feel that hateful? Yeah, it’s not just anger.

Kat: You have to be a pretty terrible person.

Rosie: It’s evilness.

Caleb: Because she says righteous anger won’t be enough because his anger level is probably astronomical right now, but it’s, like she says, righteous anger.

Lucy: It’s a superficial anger.

Rosie: He wants her to feel the pain that he’s feeling because of the loss, but that’s not the kind of thing that [the] Cruciatus [Curse] does.

Lucy: Yeah, I always thought it’s like when younger kids are first starting to try [to] swear, but they don’t really know what the words mean, so it doesn’t really come out right.

[Kat and Rosie laugh]

Lucy: I think it’s kind of the same situation that Harry doesn’t really know what the curse does or what it means to use it, so he’s using it without really knowing the context, so it doesn’t work. But the attempt just sort of loses a bit of his innocence, I think, in just that he actually thought to use it.

Kat: That’s the perfect analogy for that situation.

[Lucy laughs]

Kat: No, really, it is. It’s perfect.

Rosie: We do see him using Unforgivables later on. We see him using [the] Imperius [Curse].

Lucy: So clearly, something has changed. But then, [the] Imperius [Curse] is…

Rosie: Different, isn’t it?

Lucy: Out of the three Unforgivables, it’s the least bad if you had to rank them.

Rosie: Yeah.

Caleb: I think it’s that they require different things, right? The Cruciatus Curse takes this very impassioned and almost subhuman rage and cruelty. The Killing Curse has this willingness and acceptance to destroy a life, and the Imperius Curse is this willingness to destroy the will of something. So I think that they require different levels of how far you have to go.

Lucy: And I think Harry having the experience of being under the Imperius Curse just helps him almost to use it because he knows what it’s like from the other side. So he knows what it’s like to break someone’s will and to have your will broken.

Caleb: Yeah, that’s a good point.

Kat: Do you think there’s anybody [who] would have made it work? Like if anyone else had died? Ron? Hermione?

Lucy: Maybe Ron, his first friend in the wizarding world. Maybe.

Rosie: I don’t know because Sirius is his father figure.

Lucy: True, true.

Rosie: It would be a similar amount of pain. But I do think that perhaps Lupin at this point could have cast an Unforgivable…

Lucy: He could have done it.

Rosie: … and meant it on Bella.

Kat: Oh, yeah.

Lucy: Oh, definitely. I always thought that Lupin had sort of a darker side, not just because…

Rosie: A dark side, yeah.

Lucy: … of the whole werewolf thing, but just because of the stigmatism that comes with being a werewolf, he’d be more willing to look into the Dark Arts and stuff. And I think he’s got that rage somewhere. It just needs the right trigger. And Sirius dying is definitely a trigger.

Rosie: Yeah. So thinking about Bella herself, she can cast Unforgivables whenever she wants to. And she actually says here that she learned the Dark Arts from Voldemort himself. So I’m not entirely sure about the age difference between the two, but I’m sure Bella was at Hogwarts just after Voldemort left. She’s of the Malfoy era, which is a seven-year gap, if not more. But she is actually a member of the house of Black and all of that kind of thing. So to learn the Dark Arts from Tom Riddle, from Voldemort, seems a bit strange from the rest of the things that we know about her. How did she get involved, do you think, with the rest of that group? Was it just through the rest of the Slytherins tagging along? Did she maybe learn it through her marriage into the Lestrange family? Or was there an innate Dark Artsiness from the Blacks that seeped through?

Kat: Both, I would say.

Lucy: Yeah, I think it’s suggested a lot that the Blacks were in with Voldemort from the beginning and have always had Dark Arts leanings. Like with Grimmauld Place being full of Dark magic. I think it’s the kind of place you could easily get into Dark Arts.

Rosie: So maybe Voldemort was in contact with the family much earlier than he became Voldemort. But then she doesn’t really know about the half-blood thing that perhaps…

Lucy: Unless she does, and she’s just in denial.

Rosie: … we’ve got a very confused relationship. Yeah. I’d love to know more about Bellatrix. That’s the next thing on my Pottermore checklist.

Kat: I can’t imagine that’s not coming.

Lucy: She’s such an interesting character.

Rosie: It has to be. Maybe it’ll be waiting for the tormenting Hermione scene, which is right at the end.

Lucy: Ooh.

Rosie: Earlier than that, please.

[Lucy and Rosie laugh]

Rosie: Throughout this whole scene – the fight between Harry and Bella – we get the idea that Voldemort has been watching the whole time. Because as soon as Harry says that the prophecy has been destroyed, his scar bursts with the fiery pain that he gets whenever Voldemort is feeling strong emotion. So for him to have actually heard that conversation, he either needs to be in the room at the time or watching through the scar connection. We do know that Voldemort is about to arrive. He gets there moments later after this. But is he already in the room or is he just watching through the scar?

Lucy: I think he’s watching through the scar. I think he has a lot more control over that connection than Harry thinks.

Kat: I think he’s in the room.

Lucy: Really?

Kat: I think he’s floating. Not like floating, but…

[Lucy laughs]

Kat: … I think he’s present somewhere in the Ministry. I think he’s very present. Yeah. Because I think he would want to get his hands on the prophecy as soon as possible. He wouldn’t trust anybody to take it out of the Ministry itself.

Caleb: Yeah, I would agree with Lucy because if that was the case, then I think he would have showed up earlier to get it from Harry.

Lucy: Yeah. I think it seems through the whole thing the plan before Harry and his friends messed everything up was to do it with as little damage as possible so that they could still get away with the Ministry not believing that Voldemort was back. So I think Voldemort wouldn’t risk going himself and being seen unless things started to get dire. And obviously, with Dumbledore showing up, things are getting dire.

Kat: Well, right, I don’t think he was there the whole time, but we’re talking about the scene where they’re in the atrium, and I think Voldemort is already there at that point because I think the minute Bellatrix probably got out of the Department of Mysteries, she alerted him that something was wrong. And that’s when he showed up. I don’t think he was there the entire time, but in this scene, I do believe he was there.

Rosie: If that was the case, why would the scar have…? I guess because he’s feeling the emotions of it’s gone; therefore, he’s angry. But I think that reference to the scar makes me think that he’s watching through this connection that they’ve built up and that has been so important in this book as well. We’ve seen him projecting through it, so it would make sense that he was looking through it as well.

Kat: Wouldn’t he have been angrier far before this point if he was watching through the scar?

Rosie: Depends if he’s been watching the whole time or if he’s just been getting glimpses.

[Kat and Rosie laugh]

Kat: Like flipping the channels? Right.

Rosie: Yeah, just checking in. But I think he’s definitely heard it’s gone, and that’s why he’s arriving at this point. It’s gotten to the point where he needs to step in and just finish this.

Kat: We need Eric here to do the Voldemort scream. He does it so well.

Rosie: The “nyeaahhhhh!”?

Kat: Yes, that one.

[Kat and Rosie laugh]

Lucy: Maybe if Voldemort couldn’t be in Harry’s head before because of the amount of emotion that Harry was feeling with Sirius and everything, and even before Sirius dying, everyone coming in to save the day would probably make him feel a lot of positive emotions that maybe would throw Voldemort out, and it’s only when he gets up to the atrium with Bellatrix that Harry is feeling enough darker emotions that Voldemort can get back in?

Rosie: Or maybe it’s something about the Department of Mysteries itself …

Kat: I was just thinking that.

Rosie: … that’s shrouded and hidden.

Kat and Lucy: Blocks the connection.

Rosie: Yeah. I was just thinking that.

Rosie: Like a cell phone blackout signal.

[Kat and Rosie laugh]

Lucy: If anywhere is going to do it, it would be the Department of Mysteries.

Kat: That’s true.

Rosie: There’s[re] too many secrets in there. Voldemort has now arrived, and we see him have a little bit of speech, but then he’s straight to the point, and he’s just done with Harry. He wants to kill him. He’s not going to escape now. Except that he does. This is the third or fourth time that he’s managed to escape [the Killing Curse]. I’m not entirely sure. But this time, it’s Dumbledore [who] saves the day. Dumbledore has come up to the atrium as well, and he casts a spell that brings the [Fountain] of Magical Brethren to life. And it’s interesting that it’s actually the wizard statue at this point that steps in the way of Harry to save him. I think. Is that right?

Lucy: I think so.

Caleb: Yeah, I think so.

Rosie: And it’s just the idea of the epitome of all wizards stepping forth to save this little boy as cast by Dumbledore. It made me think: Is Dumbledore the person [whom] they based this wizard on? Maybe? Probably not, but it’s fun to have theory.

[Lucy and Rosie laugh]

Lucy: Depends how long the statue’s been around.

Rosie: That’s true. It’s just nice. I don’t believe that it’s been there for a very long time because of its inclusion of house-elves and all that kind of thing. I can’t imagine that they would have been originally put together in this “magical brethren working all together” way.

Lucy: Maybe it’s a post-Grindelwald celebration statue, in which case the wizard could be Dumbledore.

Kat: We had actually talked about the magical brethren statue a few episodes ago, and we couldn’t come up with any conclusion on it either…

[Lucy and Rosie laugh]

Kat: So I think Dumbledore is as good a guess as any, I would say.

Rosie: It’s definitely nice that, throughout this little fight, each one of the different members of that statue do[es] come alive and help out, so you’ve got all of the races working together to defeat the bad guys because…

Caleb: It takes everyone to save Harry.

Lucy: And one thing that I really like is – if I remember correctly – before Dumbledore starts animating the statue, while it does show all of the magical brethren there’s still a sort of hierarchy, like the house-elf is still down near the feet, and the wizard is standing all and proud with the wand, and…so there’s still sort of a hierarchy shown, but then once he starts animating it, everyone is on an even level, all trying to save Harry. So I just like how it shows that they need to work together as equals rather than still having that hierarchy of wizards being better than all of the other magical brethren.

Rosie: I love that statue in the movie as well. They’ve done it really well. I don’t think they employed it in the way that it does in the book, and yeah, it would have been nicer to see more of that.

Kat: Our Goblet of Fire movie guest made that.

Rosie: Really?

Kat: Mhm.

Rosie: Awesome! We do have the ultimate battle between Voldemort and the only one he ever feared, Dumbledore. And this is proper super magic. We’ve got conjuring. We’ve got complete ultimate power, and it’s really the first time that we see what magic can do within these books. And there’s a lot of focus on raw elements here as well. We’ve got the wind and fire and water, and they’re all harnesses the most raw power possible to fight against each other.

Lucy: It’s the first time we see what Dumbledore can really do as well. It’s the first time we see him fighting and actually start to realize, “Yeah, I can see why this guy defeated Grindelwald.”

Rosie: And it’s the reason why Voldemort fears him.

Caleb: One thing I found interesting was, I noticed how one of Voldemort’s Killing Curses hits the security desks, and it says it burst into flamess, and I never really thought about this before, but I guess it’s not that strange, but we really don’t see many spells causing fire. So it just seemed interesting to me that something so deadly, like the after effect of it hitting some material object, was it just burst into flames? It didn’t completely destroy or annihilate the desk.

Rosie: Especially with the Killing Curse normally doesn’t leave a mark. The only time we’ve ever seen it actually have a physical result is the scar on Harry. So it’s very strange.

Kat: Does it say it’s the Killing Curse? I remember that part. I don’t…

Caleb: Pretty sure. Pretty sure it is.

Kat: Just because there'[re] a lot of points in here where Harry just mentions a green light, and because Harry doesn’t know many spells, how does he know what it is? Because he calls everything that’s a green light the Killing Curse.

Caleb: Yeah, I guess, I mean, it’s possible it’s not, but…

Kat: I just was trying to find it. I didn’t know if you knew.

Caleb: Yeah, I can’t remember the page number.

Rosie: I think we’ve always associated the green light with the Killing Curse just because it was so prevalent in Prisoner of Azkaban that he remembered this green light and the scream of his mother dying.

Caleb: Right, so I found it. It says, “He sent another Killing Curse at Dumbledore but missed, instead hitting the security guard’s desk, which burst into flame.”

Kat: Oh, it doesn’t even mention the green light there, okay.

Caleb: Yeah, it just says the Killing Curse.

Kat: Interesting.

Rosie: Well, you know the answer here, isn’t it? It’s not that the desk is an inanimate object that burst into flames. It’s that he was killing a Desk!Pig.

[Caleb and Kat laugh]

Rosie: Obviously.

Kat: Oh, God. Oh, God.

Rosie: [laughs] There is a lovely bit of symbolism right in the middle of this fight where we’ve got Voldemort conjuring a massive snake and Fawkes the phoenix actually flying in to save Harry this time. So the entire statue actually is pretty much broken up by now, and we’ve got Fawkes stepping in instead. So you’ve got snake versus phoenix, which is obviously the imagery that we keep getting again and again in this book and throughout the whole series.

Lucy: Got to love the symbolism.

Rosie: You do.

Kat: I like how Fawkes just swallows the entire curse.

Lucy: Just like “Oh yeah, no big deal. Just a Killing Curse. I’ll be fine.”

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: “I’ll come back to life. It’s fine, no worries.”

Lucy: “I’m a phoenix. I’ve got this, guys.”

Rosie: [laughs] Yeah. It’s interesting if you really do look into the nitty-gritty of those creatures because you can see both of them as resurrection creatures. A snake sheds its skin and goes on living, and the phoenix obviously comes to the whole rebirth idea. So looking at Voldemort, you’ve got this snake that can shed its skin and can change into something else but ultimately, is still a mortal creature. It only has a finite amount of skins before it dies, whereas the phoenix just goes back to its lifecycle and starts again. So the idea that maybe reincarnation or just accepting death and living on through memories and all that kind of thing is much more powerful than trying to cleanse yourself and carry on in the one form that you are. It’s just… yeah, I love that imagery. It’s really cool.

Lucy: Yeah. I like that.

Kat: And I feel like Jo is very aware of that, and I appreciate it so much more.

Rosie: We then get to see a proper possession scene, which… we had hints of possession with Ginny in Chamber of Secrets, which she happily reminded us of earlier on in this book where Harry was worried that he was being possessed, but this is the time that we actually experience possession and understand it for what it is. And this time, rather than just being in control of a body and taking over and making the host forget periods of time while you were in control, this time it’s a different kind of possession because there is physical pain involved in this possession. Which struck me as a bit odd. It could just be that Voldemort is causing this pain, but possession itself isn’t something that is known to be painful, so is it some kind of…? I’ve talked about a magnet effect of the Horcruxes before, where you’ve got this piece of soul inside of Harry, and if Voldemort is then another bit of soul inside of Harry in this possession, are the two trying to reconnect and not managing to? Is that what’s causing the pain?

Kat: What I… before… I think this might help answer it. The line exactly says,

“He was gone from the hall, he was locked in the coils of a creature with red eyes, so tightly bound that Harry did not know where his body ended and the creature’s began.”

I think it’s… obviously, that points to a snake – the coils, the red eyes – so I…

Rosie: It makes me picture that sene from Aladdin with the giant snake.

[Kat and Rosie laugh]

Kat: Yes, exactly. So I feel like it’s not normal, and it’s more painful because…

Rosie: It’s the epitome of Slytherin: evilness, snake, that kind of thing.

Kat: Yeah. Because he just keeps saying, “creature, creature, creature,” and I feel like it’s something inside. It’s not actually Voldemort that’s in there. It’s something that he has conjured to go into Harry to make the pain. Because he’s saying “creature” and not “Voldemort.” If it was Voldemort inside him, I feel like he would know that.

Caleb: Unless Voldemort is only a creature at this point.

Kat: That’s true.

Lucy: Yeah, maybe Harry sees him as a creature at this point because his soul isn’t whole, and possession is very much about souls battling rather than actual physical bodies. So since he doesn’t have a full physical soul, he can’t appear as a human during possession, if that makes sense.

Kat: It does.

Lucy: He appears as something less than human because his soul is less than complete.

Kat: I wonder if he shows up as that weird little baby thing.

Lucy: Ugh.

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: I’m just kidding. But I’m not. I’m serious.

[Lucy laughs]

Rosie: We do know that he spoke through Harry later on during this possession sequence. It is definitely Voldemort [who] is in control of Harry at this point. And the things that he’s saying at this moment is asking Dumbledore to kill him because he’s within Harry’s body, so it’s taunting Dumbledore to say, “If you want to kill me, this is your chance because I am here. But you’ll have to kill Harry at the same time.”

Lucy: Maybe Harry is in so much pain because Voldemort is almost forcing him out of his own body by putting his soul in there. Maybe that’s why it’s so much worse than his usual scar pain.

Kat: But… I mean, do we really think that Voldemort is in Harry’s body? Because… and I know we’re going to try not to touch on this too much since I think it’s going to be our Podcast Question of the Week, but does Voldemort really believe at any point that Dumbledore would actually kill Harry in this moment? And if he’s…? Do you know what I’m trying to circle around here? Why would Voldemort even put himself in that spot? Because he knows. I don’t know. You know what I’m circling here?

Rosie: Yeah. I think he knows that Dumbledore wouldn’t kill Harry.

Lucy: He’s just taunting him.

Rosie: Yeah, it’s his safety net. He knows that he can get out of this battle by escaping through Harry, perhaps, at this point.

Caleb: Well, one thing I do want to say: It’s interesting […] that in this scene, Harry – whatever is going on – is begging in some way, asking Dumbledore to kill him, and we get the exact rehearsal in the next book.

Kat: That’s true.

Rosie: Yeah, this is really interesting – also with the echoes [of] the final battle – because throughout this whole sequence, Harry is constantly saying… he’s welcoming death. He wants to stop whatever’s going on, whether he’s possessed or not. He wants to die so that… he actually mentions that he could be with Sirius again. He kind of forgets about his parents, but he wants to be with Sirius again.

Lucy: Well, I suppose he knows Sirius. He doesn’t really know his parents.

Rosie: Yeah. So you’ve got that Erised moment again where he’s only thinking about those [whom] he’s lost, and he is totally willing at this moment to die and to go […] meet them again.

Kat: If Sirius hadn’t died, would Harry still be thinking this?

Lucy: Hmm. I don’t think so.

Rosie: No, but I don’t think he would be in this situation if Sirius hadn’t died. He would never have gone out to battle Voldemort. Well, battle Bellatrix, but Voldemort is behind it.

Lucy: Yeah, he never would have chased her.

Rosie: But I just found it really interesting how this is an echo of the future. The only way Harry defeats Voldemort both times and to end this possession is to defeat the man who is afraid of death by being willing to die. He has to embrace that death and the love involved in dying for these people, or dying to go […] see these people, to actually defeat the Dark Lord.

Kat: Yeah, I just think that if he hadn’t just experienced a death, no matter whose death, that Harry might not necessarily be having these feelings. Regardless of the situation – let’s pretend he still went upstairs – if Sirius or anyone hadn’t just died, I’m not sure he would be feeling these feelings. I’m not sure right here in this moment, he has accepted death other than the fact that he wants to go see Sirius again. That’s what I’m saying.

Lucy: Yeah, but then the fact that he does semi-accept death at this point, makes it easier to believe when it does come to the final showdown in the future that it’s something that he can make that decision on without having a huge existential crisis because he has thought about it before. It’s not a new concept for him.

Kat: That’s true.

Rosie: He’s almost thought about it every single year. [laughs]

Kat: Pretty much.

Rosie: Most of the time, he chooses that he would rather live if he had the choice, but this time it’s the pain.

Lucy: Yeah, but there’s always that little bit of doubt.

Rosie: Yeah. And I do think it’s partly the element of pain here as well. This is an excruciating amount of pain that he’s feeling. Death would be preferable to this amount of pain. The movie does this in a weird way.

Caleb: To say the least.

Lucy: The whole “you’ll never know love or friendship” thing.

Kat: Well, they do use the snake imagery, though.

Rosie: They do, yeah.

Kat: With Dan slithering.

Rosie: The snake imagery is good. But I can see where they’ve got the idea that it’s love defeating Voldemort at this point, and it’s definitely the emotions of him wanting to be with Sirius and that love connection that does defeat him in this scene, but it’s just… yeah, that little monologue that Harry has… sickening.

[Kat laughs]

Rosie: But moving on, Harry does defeat this possession or whatever it was, and Voldemort separates from his body, and this is the moment that Fudge chooses to finally arrive. Where has the Ministry been during this? I mean, surely, they wouldn’t normally just shut down and everyone leave.

Lucy: Coffee break?

Rosie: Coffee break, yeah, the entire Ministry at once. Maybe a Christmas staff party even though it’s July.

Lucy: Yeah. Well, with Fudge in charge, it wouldn’t surprise me.

Caleb: Asleep in bed like a true bureaucrat.

[Lucy laughs]

Rosie: Yeah, in his pajamas. So Fudge arrives, and he actually manages to see Voldemort before he Apparates from the room, and Dumbledore is so completely done with the Ministry at this point. Everything that has happened today has taken as much out of Dumbledore as the rest of them, and Dumbledore’s attitude throughout this conversation really strikes me in terms of our Podcast Question of the Week – a question a bit later on – as to what Dumbledore’s thoughts are at this moment after this fight. He’s in a very dark place, it seems, and he is just taking no ridiculousness.

Kat: I just remember being like, “I can’t even believe Fudge is hesitating for a single moment to try [to] get…” Oh my God.

Rosie: You’ve seen it with your own eyes!

Kat: Oh my God.

Lucy: But then this is Fudge we’re talking about here.

Kat: Yeah. He is someone [whom] I really hope we get more information on, but I think his moment has passed at the moment, which is sad.

Rosie: Especially, yeah, now that we’ve finished Order of the Phoenix.

Lucy: Maybe in this Advent period that Jo is writing a bit about different characters, maybe we’ll get something with him.

Kat: You mean the 12 new stories?! I’m just kidding.

Rosie: Yeah! The whole new novel set in 12 days! It’s going to be brilliant.

Lucy: Definitely.

[Kat laughs]

Rosie: Yeah, we should put a disclaimer there that that’s not happening.

Lucy: Yeah, if only. But I love this bit of the book because it’s a step up in the series in that the Ministry can no longer deny – because they’ve seen it – that Voldemort is back, and it’s the start of the war for real because it’s not just Harry and a few other people and Dumbledore fighting Voldemort and the Death Eaters. It is “everyone now needs to be aware.” The war has begun, this is happening, it’s all out in the open, and of course, Fudge is freaking out about what to do, so Dumbledore takes charge.

Kat: Get your bleep together, basically.

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: Right now.

Lucy: Yeah, but it’s just a transition through the series from “this is Harry’s problem” to “this is the world’s problem,” and it’s the first point to me where it feels like we’re getting closer to the end.

Caleb: Nice of you guys to join us, finally.

Kat: Right?

Caleb: Nice job, Ministry. Get on board.

Lucy: They tried. Gold star.

Rosie: But just imagine that happening in a Muggle world as well. I mean, the chaos in this room, the destruction of the atrium at this point, is complete. The statue is destroyed, the glass is everywhere in the movie, and all that kind of stuff. But I mean, imagine Parliament in the UK or the White House in America. If you have the same level of destruction…

Caleb: It’s like V for Vendetta.

Rosie: Exactly, yeah!

Caleb: Boom. Everything gone.

Rosie: You’ve got this ridiculous amount of chaos. There is literally no where to go from there in terms of…

Lucy: Yeah, but then with magic, it’s easy to wave your wand and all of the chaos and destruction is fixed and gone and nothing ever happened…

Rosie: Yeah.

Lucy: … whereas in the Muggle world, someone has to get out the dustpan and brush and rebuild everything.

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: Filch. I mean, Filch.

Lucy: Oh, I love that bit in the film, though, when Filch is just sweeping up all of the debris. And he’s just so done with everything.

[Kat and Rosie laugh]

Lucy: But it’s just… with magic, it’s easier to sweep everything under the rug.

Rosie: Yeah.

Lucy: But I think with so many people actually seeing Voldemort just then, even Fudge can’t deny it.

Rosie: It’s impossible to hide.

Kat: I mean, we can’t deny that Muggles do that, too. Let’s talk about the current politics of the world and compare the two.

Lucy: Oh, yeah.

Rosie: Let’s not. [laughs]

Kat: Yeah.

Rosie: But we do see that the Ministry has a complete change after this moment. The atrium, when we go back there again, is a very, very different place and obviously not for the better, sadly.

Lucy: Mm.

Rosie: This is the moment of potential and you can see by the Ministry’s reaction to this moment of potential a little bit about where we’re heading, which isn’t very hopeful.

Lucy: Yeah.

Rosie: And then we have to try and regain control of this situation and Dumbledore, unfortunately, has to take control of the Ministry side and the official side, which means that Harry gets abandoned at the worst possible moment just as Dumbledore has been doing to him all year.

Caleb: All along.

Lucy: Sucks to be Harry.

Rosie: And he is just sent back to Hogwarts by Portkey. It’s just horrible. Why would you do that to someone? [laughs]

Caleb: Yeah, all the other kids are unconscious throughout the Ministry but, “Harry, you’ve got to go right now. See you later.”

Lucy: “Oh, yeah, your friends will be fine; don’t worry about them.”

Rosie: “And we’re going to lock you in a room on your own for half an hour.” Send him with Remus or something. It’s just horrible to do it like this.

Lucy: Yeah, he has just lost his godfather. You don’t want to just send him alone. “Oh, yeah, yeah, I’ll come get you later. Just sit in my office and chill for a little bit. Cry over Sirius. You’ll be fine.”

Kat: I mean, even after Cedric died, Dumbledore wanted him to stay close so this is quite the opposite.

Caleb and Rosie: Yeah.

Lucy: Mmm.

Rosie: Although they knew that there was a spy at Hogwarts at that point so it was dangerous for him to be on his own.

Kat: Right.

Rosie: But emotionally, this is the worst pastoral care you could give to a student. [laughs]

Kat: Pretty much.

Rosie: Bad headmaster.

[Kat laughs]

Caleb: Dumbledore is much more focused on putting Fudge in his place, making sure Umbridge is gone when he gets back, and everything else.

Rosie: Yeah, politics.

Caleb: He’s much more worried about the administrative stuff, and once again, doesn’t really take the best care of Harry.

Rosie: Yeah.

Lucy: But then to be fair, there is a lot of important administrative stuff.

Caleb: Sure. Sure there is.

Lucy: He does need to focus on that. And Harry is fine, just not emotionally.

Kat: Although this does mean – since we’re at the end – that we’re on the precipice of my favorite chapter in the entire series.

Rosie: Yes.

Kat: And I’m really, really excited.

Rosie: This is the proper “Secrets will be revealed” chapter. It’s time, Harry.

Lucy: Mhm. This is the game changer.

Kat: Ooh, I love it!

Rosie: Yeah, this is the quote that we always had before the book came out as well, isn’t it? It’s the, “It’s time, Harry, for me to tell you what I should have told you however many years ago…”

Kat and Lucy: Mhm.

Rosie: That line has stuck in my head since months before this book came out when we are finally… when that little snippet was revealed, and just… oh, it gives me chills. [laughs]

Lucy: Yep.

Kat: We go from the very big, very exciting, very flashy showy-showy-showy stuff to very much the… not necessarily the quiet, but the uncharted territory, so to say.

Rosie: Yeah.

Kat: It’s great. A nice short chapter to a very long chapter because this chapter is only 13 pages.

Lucy: Mmm.

Rosie: Yeah, it’s so jam-packed full of action, but it’s only really one fight, and it’s hard to stretch it out a bit more without making it less interesting, but also hard to put other things in there because this is so important. This is your movie sequence.

Kat: Mhm.

Rosie: That could have been done so well, and unfortunately… well, some of it was done very well, but others of it could have been improved.

Kat: A lot better.

Lucy and Rosie: Yeah.

Kat: But again, we’ll get there.

Lucy: Yeah, I think fight scenes are so hard to write, though, just from my own perspective using non-magic stuff. It’s just really difficult to try and get the image across without being really overly descriptive, so I think the fact that it’s short works in its favor because it gets everything across but allows you to imagine the fight rather than having every little movement spelled out for you.

Rosie: Yeah.

Kat: Yeah, the mechanics of the fighting; who moves where and how and… yeah, you could get tied up in that easily, I imagine.

Lucy: Mm. Yeah, they’re hard to write, so this one is one of the best, I’d say.

Rosie: Definitely within a fantasy sequence, yeah.

Lucy: Mhm.

Rosie: There’s enough in there for your own imagination to really latch onto this fight and do whatever it wants rather than just having to be exactly the spells that she tells us.

Lucy: Especially with all the fire and water and raw magic everywhere.

Rosie: Yeah, yeah.

Kat: Raw magic. That’s a good way to put it.

Lucy: Well, it seems like it because they don’t seem to use any actual spells”¦

Rosie: No, it’s very much kind of…

Lucy: … just manipulating magic itself.

Kat: Well, it’s all nonverbal.

Lucy: Yeah, but then even so, they don’t seem to be using magic with some sort of structure. It’s just one of them makes one move and the other changes the magic to counter that move, so it feels like they’re using magic itself rather than a structured spell.

Rosie: Yeah, or things that they’ve created rather than the spells that they’ve been taught.

Lucy: Yeah, because they are that powerful and they can do that.

Rosie: Yeah.

Kat: That makes sense. I like the distinction between the raw and the magic itself. It’s cool.

Rosie: Yeah. And that is the end of this chapter.

Caleb: All right, so now we are going to give you guys a new Question of the Week, and this is actually inspired from a thought Rosie had from the chapter, so Rosie’s great ideas are continuing for the Question of the Week.

[Rosie laughs]

Caleb: So in this chapter, there is obviously the moment where Dumbledore – excuse me – when Voldemort is either possessing Harry or connected to Harry or something. We aren’t sure yet what’s going on, but they’re connected somehow and Harry is pleading with Dumbledore to kill him because of the pain and whatever else may be happening. So we want to pose to you guys, “What if there was no Horcrux in Harry or if the situation was slightly different, where Dumbledore was not worried about the situation with the Horcruxes? Would Dumbledore have been more willing to kill Harry without this Horcrux in Harry?” And so there are some other questions you can consider with this idea: Whether Voldemort has an idea of Dumbledore’s master plan with the Horcruxes, and whether Dumbledore is willing to sacrifice Harry later to leave Voldemort vulnerable at the perfect time. But ultimately the big question is: “Would Dumbledore have made a different decision if there was no Horcrux and the possible opportunity to destroy and kill Voldemort while also killing Harry in this moment?”

Rosie: It’s just such a difficult question, whether… I have so many issues with Dumbledore! [laughs]

Lucy: Mhm.

Caleb: He’s willing to kill him later, so…

Rosie: It’s just the whole thing…

Kat: Yeah, but he doesn’t have to be the one to “pull the trigger” later.

Caleb: So we want to hear what you guys think, so we will have this question up on the main site. Let us know what you think and we might read your response next week.

Rosie: So all that remains is to thank our guest. Lucy, I hope you’ve had a great time on the show.

Lucy: I have. It’s been really good. Thank you for having me.

Rosie: Thank you for being here.

Kat: Absolutely. Tell our listeners where they can find you on the web.

Lucy: I’m on Twitter at @Lucy_Saxon, lucysaxonbooks.tumblr.com; I’m also on Facebook, “Lucy Saxon” or “Lucy Saxon Cosplay” because I’m also a cosplayer. And quick plug of the book: It’s available on Amazon, Waterstones, and Barnes & Noble, all online.

Kat: Who do you cosplay?

Lucy: Oh, so many people. I’ve cosplayed Draco Malfoy. I love cosplaying Draco. It’s so much fun to just be an evil Slytherin for the day.

[Caleb and Kat laugh]

Lucy: The amount of people who sort of yell at me from across the room, just like, “Ah, Malfoy, you Death Eater,” and I’m just like, “Yeah, that’s me. Hello.”

[Caleb and Rosie laugh]

Kat: We should introduce you to Amanda, who was on the show last week.

Rosie: Yeah, she cosplays Bellatrix and it’s an amazing outfit.

Caleb: Yeah.

Kat: You guys would get on well.

Caleb: The best Bellatrix cosplay.

Lucy: It’s my dream to get a group, like a Malfoy family group. I know a few people who cosplay, but it’s trying to get everyone cosplaying on the same day at the same convention. But I would love to do Draco, Bella, Narcissa, and Lucius. It would just be amazing.

Kat: Well, there happens to be a really awesome convention happening next April that you could try and do that at.

Lucy: I know, I know.

Rosie: That’s very true.

Kat: That’s MuggleNet’s Expo Patronum for those that don’t know, so…

Rosie: You should all have tickets already. Why don’t you? [laughs]

Kat: That’s right. You should.

Caleb: And if you would like to be a guest on the show, you can check out how to do that on our “Be on the Show,” page which is on our homepage, alohomora.mugglenet.com. If you have a set of Apple headphones or something comparable, you’re all set. You definitely do not need any fancy equipment.

Kat: And if you just want to stay in touch with us in the meantime, you can find us on Twitter at @AlohomoraMN, facebook.com/openthedumbledore; we’re on Tumblr at mnalohomorapodcast; of course our phone number 206-GO-ALBUS – that’s 206-462-5287. And don’t forget that you can leave us an audioBoom for free. All you need is a microphone and an Internet connection. There is a little green button on alohomora.mugglenet.com; just click it, send us a message under 60 seconds, please, so we can play it on the show. That can be a recap comment, a question on the upcoming chapter, something really stupid and funny for us to put at the end of the episode… really anything. Just send us something fun.

Caleb: Also make sure to check out our store which has a lot of great products including sweatshirts, long-sleeve tees, tote bags, flip-flops, and a lot more. We also have free ringtones for your cell phone that are available on our main site. So check those out.

Kat: And of course, don’t forget our smartphone app which is available, as Eric likes to say, “On this side of the pond and the other,” and seemingly around the world as well. Prices vary depending on your location. It includes things like transcripts, bloopers, alternate endings, host vlogs, and so much more.

Caleb: All right, that’s going to do it for this episode of Alohomora! I’m Caleb Graves.

Rosie: I’m Rosie Morris.

Kat: And I’m Kat Miller. Thank you for listening to Episode 114 of Alohomora!

[Show music begins]

Caleb: Open the Dumbledore!

[Show music continues]

Kat: Along those same lines, can we talk for a minute about Dolohov busting out…? Oh my God. Taranta…

Caleb: Tarantallegra.

Kat: [laughs] Wait, say it slower.

Caleb: So think of “tarantula” and then… Tarantallegra.

Rosie: Yeah, “Allegra” the music.

Caleb: Yeah.

Kat: Tarantallegra.

Rosie: Yeah.

Kat: Tarantallegra. Okay.

[Rosie laughs]